2010-04-15

Another excerpt...

I am posting another excerpt. Editing is not my strong suit...rather, editing my OWN stuff is not my strong suit. I happily proofread and mark up letters and newsy tidbits at work. I have a red felt-tip marker reserved for that very purpose. But my own stuff? It's like pulling teeth from a bear. It's like being told I talk in my sleep, and then presented with the recordings as proof. Did that really come out of me? Ew. I feel bad, sort of, that it's so difficult for me to be objective and practical about my own work. I don't know how other writers do it. Anyway...let me know what you think. I can take it from you guys.
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In elementary school, the playing field is more or less even. There is, of course, the sense that some kids are a little better off, but by and large there's still the sense of honoring what's fair and vanquishing what isn't. Everyone gets invited to your birthday party. You punch out prefab valentines and address one to every member of the class.

Second grade, third grade, fourth grade. You stretch and grow spindlier, knock-kneed. Baby teeth wiggle and fall out and school pictures document the dental progressions.

But the alliances have been forming all along. The kids in your class have always thought you were weird, but the weirdness is almost brushed aside. It's not yet a point of ridicule. It's not the final chip that will be stacked against you come sixth grade.

Because sixth grade is when it happens. Imperceptibly, without warning. You will not see it coming, but when it comes, you will become acutely aware that it was heading at you all the time, and you'll kick yourself for being so unprepared. How could you have known? The boys you played with last year suddenly become aloof, snickering, not your friends. And your efforts to make things as they were will be rebuffed. You turn around and realize that there isn't one girl that will speak to you in any way resembling kindly. Because the alliances have been forming, and now they've solidified. You will not be granted entrance.

Now come the opinions that have also been simmering all this time. But you won't be told straight-out that you're weird. You'll be coaxed into saying weird things. "Are you going to DANCE with anybody?" you'll be asked a day or two before your very first "mixer" in the school gym, a big deal. Sixth, seventh and eighth graders getting to wear "normal" clothes, drink punch, and awkwardly dance with one another to pre-approved songs.

"Not unless someone drops a goldfish down my pants," you reply. Because you think it's funny, and because you don't want to get into what you're REALLY thinking.

The girls look at you, stunned. "Oh...my....God." one of them hisses as the rest of them explode into paroxysms of laughter.

Your ears burn as you turn around to face the blackboard. You've done it again. Nothing you say is right. Everything you say or do is weird or queer or gay. You don't look right, you don't act right, and even the things you're good at come under fire. The days are much longer than they were in fifth grade. You plead with the clock over the door, to the right of the statue of the Blessed Mother. You ask more favors of that clock than you ever did of Mary. Please just be two o'clock now. Even one-thirty. Please please please. Amen.

Nobody eats with you at lunch anymore. The girls that used to be your friends have now been invited to sit with the popular crowd. The crowd that you and your friends used to regard with some disdain. The sense of betrayal is overwhelming, as the knowledge that they've only been invited there to ensure your solitude is sickening. Because you're not being "paranoid." You know that this is exactly the plan.

You don't know why you're this way. You know that you have no interest in being like them. You couldn't muster a compliment for a single one of them if you tried, and even if you did, it would be picked apart and laughed at like everything else you say and do. Because it's too late. If you'd wanted acceptance, you'd have tried harder back in third grade. You wouldn't have played with boys. You'd have sat with the girls and braided their hair and let them braid yours. You'd have pretended to like all the things that they liked. In third grade you should have done these things. But you didn't, and now it's sixth grade, and you're toast, basically. You're done.

lisamcc at 8:45 a.m.

2 comments so far
Honey
2010-04-16 22:30:36
This rings so damn true. Except it started in grade school for me.
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Mumma
2010-04-16 23:34:53
Of course, you Mother was no help...she saw these things and tried to "excuse" them..."You are a wonderful girl...it's their problem" How helpful. The final straw for me...and I'm so very sorry it didn't happen earlier...was being told that "she brought it upon herself." How in the holy hell can one respond to such a statement, except just to stare at the person who said it, and try to fathom their lack of compassion and sensitivity. Sadly, by the end of your sixth grade it was finally obvious how blind and stupid one can be to people you thought were your friends...and I am not speaking of the children. I love you and am so damned proud of you...I'd love to add an epithet, a message as it were, but I won't. At least not now.
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